Klingenschmitt bill to repeal ‘Bob-Gardnercare’ defeated by Dems 5-4.  Kara Mason, Colorado Statesman, 4 Feb 16

The Democratic controlled House kill committee dispatched Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt’s anti-Obamacare bill Wednesday as expected, but the bill will lead a campaign afterlife, the Colorado Springs Republican told The Colorado Statesman.

 

In its death, House Bill 1015 will likely become an arrow pointed at former state Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, who Klingenschmitt is running against in a heated primary battle. Both men are running to fill the Senate District 12 seat in the state Senate being vacated by term-limited Senate President Bill Cadman.

 

Klingenschmitt’s bill would have repealed the Colorado Health Care Coverage Act, HB 13-1266. That law was passed in 2013 to align Colorado’s health insurance market with the framework established by President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

 

The Colorado law was sponsored by 33 Democrats and one Republican — Bob Gardner.

“I’m not surprised the Democrats voted with Gardner once again to continue ‘Affordable Bob Gardner Care,’” Klingenschmitt said, adding that the state law forced Colorado insurers to issue “a half-million policy cancellation letters.”

 

Conservatives concerned about Republican power at the Capitol should take note, Klingenschmitt said, given that Republicans control just the Senate chamber and that they hold the majority there by just one seat.

“With me, it would be an 18 to 17 split (in the Senate),” he said. “With Gardner, it would be a 17.5 to 17.5 split.”

 

In January, Klingenschmitt told The Statesman that his bill would be “the centerpiece of the campaign” for Cadman’s seat. “I’m asking voters if they want a liberal Republican who wrote Obamacare into our statutes or do they want conservative who will work at the legislature to repeal Obamacare in the state?” he said.

 

Gardner defends himself against Klingenschmitt’s charges by arguing that he established a record as an effective lawmaker over the course of years at the statehouse and that it will take an effective lawmaker to genuinely trim back Obamacare.

 

“I have opposed Obamacare. I DO oppose Obamacare and I will CONTINUE to oppose Obamacare,” he wrote in a blog at his campaign website. “Unfortunately, many Republicans act as if it is enough to proclaim their opposition loudly and introduce various bills to repeal Obamacare — all of which promptly die in a committee somewhere or never come to a vote in the other Democrat controlled chamber.”

 

Klingenschmitt presented his own health policy cancellation letter to the committee members during the hearing. He said “Gardnercare” essentially eliminated inexpensive health insurance policies in Colorado.

 

Rep. Susan Lontine, D-Denver, probed Klingenschmitt for details. Why buy personal insurance if, as a lawmaker, you get a state policy? Wouldn’t having state insurance alone be less expensive?

 

Klingenschmitt waved her off. Obama promised that if people liked their coverage, they could keep it, he said, but after the Colorado Health Care Coverage Act passed with Gardner’s support, policies like the one he bought fell away.

 

Rep. Dianne Primavera, D-Broomfield, a cancer survivor, pointed out that many of the provisions of Obamacare that Klingenschmitt’s bill would repeal are popular — provisions that allow young people to remain covered on their parents’ plans and that guard against insurers dropping customers or refusing to cover them, for example.

 

Klingenschmitt took a free-market approach in answering Primavera.

 

“There’s not much middle ground,” he said.

 

He explained that he thought health insurance policies should work like any other insurance policies. Fire insurance agents consider preexisting conditions, he said. It only makes sense.

 

“You shouldn’t be able to buy a policy after your house burns to the ground,” Klingenschmitt said. “That would make it impossible for the insurance industry to really continue to exist.”

 

This was the second year Klingenschmitt’s Obamacare repeal bill died in a House committee. He ran the same bill last year.